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The Solicitor-General, Sir E. Clarke, in presiding on Wednesday night

at the house dinner of the City Carlton CM), expressed his hope that the crushing defeat of the Moderates in the County Council elections would at least induce them to make up for their indifference and carelessness at the municipal polls, by extra efforts to carry good Con- servatives or Unionists at the Parliamentary polls which are so near. We, too, hope that political penitence may effect a great work of the kind indicated by the Solicitor-General ; but we cannot say that, as a rule, political penitence is a much greater power than political gratitude. Those who neglect their duty in that which is least, are very apt to neglect it in that which is much. It is, however, a better ground of hope that men who are comparatively indifferent about their rates, may be, and often are, very solicitous about their country. Thriftlessness in local matters is no security for enthusiasm in national matters, but at least it is not inconsistent with it ; and you often find the two actually combined.